Treason? Yes. Puppet? No. Even if there is zero collusion, Trump is doing Putin’s bidding. Russia has big, big designs on projecting power, and Trump is enabling them by undermining NATO and alienating pur Western allies, and now goes on the international stage and projects abject weakness and subjectivity to a rising Russia.

Collusion is largely irrelevant - a menacing foreign power attacked our democracy and tried to influence an election. That’s a standalone offense any other president would have cancelled the summit over (message: we’re in charge of events here, not you, and you don’t do that to the US without consequence).

Instead, Trump went and cowed before cameras all summit long.

Puppet is accurate at this point, collusion or not. So is Asset. So is Coward. Trump did more to destroy American prestige against a known foreign adversary in one summit than Obama did in 8 years (and everyone knows I am not a fan of Obama’s foreign policy and what I believe to be two terms of projecting weakness).

I just don’t see how the volume and extent of the “fake” news; Wiki-leaks/DEM/Clinton hacking, (in addition to things like the Comey fiasco)…didn’t have an influence…

Now…was it enough to influence the eventual outcome?

Clinton was a horrible candidate; who didn’t have near the enthusiasm for her candidacy that President Obama did in the past; running against an energized Trump base ready to “Lock her up…”. And as others have pointed out…the GOP had done their job and had been absolutely relentless in attacking her and keeping her front of Congressional Committees and in a negative light before the American people.

And the one thing we heard the Right insist on about during the Obama years was that Obama’s projection of weakness would invite bad actors to start trouble without fear of retribution. Fair point, on which I agreed. And when we saw Syria, and - oh, what’s the one country, can’t think of the name, annexed Crimea and invaded Georgia, darn it, what’s the name, oh yes - Russia, acted badly, we heard a steady stream of “there are the fruits of Obama’s weakness”. And on and on.

Now we have Trump not only putting on the worst performance on an international stage by an American president (and I mean that objectively, I defy anyone to dig into history and produce a worst performance), we have a performance of concise, abject weakness beside the very malefactor who has been causing havoc because of Obama’s purported weakness over the past decade - so if Trump acted even weaker than Obama re: Putin, and that’s not debatable, where is all the fury from the Right?

I read somewhere today that a poll shows 71% of Republicans approve of how Trump handled Putin. This is not simply an embarrassment - it’s an indictment of the Right.

Tell you one thing. Hillary corrupt? As Hell, yes. A bad executive? Yes, see Libya. A card carrying member of the out of touch elite? Hell yes. Did I vote for her? Hell no.

Would Hillary ever puss out and humiliate herself in abject subjectivity to Putin and embarrass the United States before Russia?

“According to geographical experts, maps, and professionals in the world of politics, about 77% of Russia is located within the borders of Asia. Yet, somewhat bizarrely, more Russians live in the European part of the country than the Asian part.”

I just don’t see how the volume and extent of the “fake” news; Wiki-leaks/DEM/Clinton hacking, (in addition to things like the Comey fiasco)…didn’t have an influence…

Three states decided the election. Trump won them collectively by 78k votes, representing half of one percent of the votes cast there. Considering the massive undertaking by Russia to interfere in the process, it is not at all a stretch to presume that their involvement alone decided this election.

Three states decided the election. Trump won them collectively by 78k votes, representing half of one percent of the votes cast there. Considering the massive undertaking by Russia to interfere in the process, it is not at all a stretch to presume that their involvement alone decided this election.

If so; then the Russians DID “influence” the election. Doesn’t mean that Clinton would have won; or that she wasn’t a terrible candidate; but to deny the influence of the Russians in the election is the height of putting ones “head-in-the-sand”.

"WASHINGTON — Two weeks before his inauguration, Donald J. Trump was shown highly classified intelligence indicating that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered complex cyberattacks to sway the 2016 American election.

The evidence included texts and emails from Russian military officers and information gleaned from a top-secret source close to Mr. Putin, who had described to the C.I.A. how the Kremlin decided to execute its campaign of hacking and disinformation.

Mr. Trump sounded grudgingly convinced, according to several people who attended the intelligence briefing." [emphasis mine]

Just to recap - a former US ambassador and several other US citizens, whom Putin pathologically hates and wants them dead (as matter-of-factly repeatedly explained by Russian State TV and several members of Putin’s United Russia Party) will be “questioned” by the KGB/SVR?

Oh by the way, if anyone here is from Alaska the key phrase is “Zdravstvuyte soldaty slavnoy Krasnoie Armii” (greetings soldiers of the glorious Red Army)